While I will do my best to avoid spoilers in my discussions of games it's not always possible to do so when conveying why and where a game excels or falls short. (more)

All Graphics Cards

What is a Graphics Card?

A graphics card is responsible for displaying the image you seen on screen. The images are made up by thousands of tiny dots called pixels, on a high resolution screen the graphics card can be displaying millions of pixels. Originally at the start of the PC revolution the graphics card’s purpose was only to display the image on the screen. The amount of memory present on a graphics card was very small and was not needed to a great extent where the modern cards can have several gigabytes of memory onboard. The modern graphics card is capable of powering breathtaking games, displaying 3D perspectives that show characters leaping out of the screen, running 1080P Full HD video in all its glory and can accelerate non-3D applications using their amazing processing power.

What is a graphics card? A graphics card is responsible for displaying the image you seen on screen. The images are made up by thousands of tiny dots called pixels, on a high resolution screen the graphics card can be displaying millions of pixels. Originally at the start of the PC revolution the graphics card’s purpose was only to display the image on the screen. The amount of memory present on a graphics card was very small and was not needed to a great extent where the modern cards can have several gigabytes of memory onboard. The modern graphics card is capable of powering breathtaking games, displaying 3D perspectives that show characters leaping out of the screen, running 1080P Full HD video in all its glory and can accelerate non-3D applications using their amazing processing power. Graphics cards come in two distinct packages. There are integrated solutions such as onboard the motherboard and discreet cards such as those made by Nvidia and AMD ATI. Even the lowest models in the range of add-in cards can outperform onboard solutions often by a magnitude of several times. What features should I look for in a graphics card? A modern graphics card has a bewildering list of technologies and features present, it is easiest to work out what you want from a graphics card and then find the features which will give you the best experience. DirectX : A technology Microsoft has incorporated into Windows that standardises games enabling them to run on graphics cards supporting the same version of DirectX. The game developers make their games to work with DirectX and the graphics card vendors make the cards work with DirectX ensuring compatibility. The latest DirectX is version 11 which currently has the potential to provide the very best graphical images on PC surpassing what is possible on even the most powerful games consoles. OpenGL : Like DirectX OpenGL is a standard specification for developers to use to ensure compatibility. Unlike DirectX however OpenGL is compatible across multiple operating systems including Windows and Macintosh. OpenGL has decreased in popularity over recent years for games although there are still titles released which make use of...